The present invention relates generally to a method and a computer program product for the modernization of an elevator installation.
Elevator installations for conveying persons and goods are relatively long-term investment products with service lives of 20 years and more. If after such a length of time a general overhaul of the elevator installation is needed, the components of the elevator installation are often old in terms of technology, which obliges a more or less complete exchange of components. Such an exchange of components of an elevator installation is termed a “modernization” in the following. The modernization is often carried out staggered in time, wherein control units and elevator cars are modernized in a first stage, while drives are modernized in the machine room in a further stage, and floor call transmitters are modernized at the individual floors in a final stage.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,352,857 shows a method for the modernization of an elevator installation. The elevator installation consists of a group of elevators that convey passengers in a building, wherein each elevator is controlled by an elevator control. In order to maintain the transport capacity of the elevator installation during the modernization, the modernization work is undertaken in a modular manner and in time segments. A first method step consists of incorporating a group control and several adapter units. The adapter units are mounted at the elevator controls and act between the individual elevator controls and the new group control. In this manner there is formed a communications network that allows control of the individual elevators by way of the new group control. In further method steps, existing components of the elevator installation are—at freely selectable later moments in time—combined in modules. Existing elevator installation components—such as the drive in the engine room, the floor call transmitters in the floors, etc.—are then selected and removed in the manner of modules and replaced by new, corresponding elevator installation components. When all modules have been replaced, the elevator controls and the adapter units are removed in a further method step and replaced by a safety system interface in order to control the individual elevators from the group control by way of the safety system interface.
Disadvantages of this method of modernization of an elevator installation are that the transport capacity of the elevator installation has to be maintained as best as possible during the modernization, that the modular modernization can be drawn out in time and that the method is material-intensive and thus costly in realization.
In many cases, however, modernization of an elevator installation is carried out in order to produce an increase in the efficiency of the elevator installation or to increase the travel comfort for the users. Thus, passengers want to be transported as quickly and directly as possible, with long waiting times or a re-boarding being perceived as disagreeable. In addition, accelerations and retardations of the elevator cars should be hardly detectable by the users.